Mason slams VAR officials after Spurs squander comeback against Liverpool: ‘I need an explanation’
Ryan Mason has given his reaction after Tottenham Hotspur squandered what would have been an astonishing comeback against Liverpool at Anfield.
Spurs began the game in a similar fashion to their 6-1 defeat to Newcastle last Sunday, conceding three goals early on.
Curtis Jones opened the scoring for Liverpool after Trent Alexander-Arnold delivered an inch-perfect cross to the back post. Jones finished the chance to give the Reds a 1-0 lead after just three minutes.
Tottenham failed to respond and conceded a second just two minutes later through Luis Diaz. Cristian Romero chopped down Mohamed Salah in the penalty area shortly after – who converted the spot kick confidently.
But, Spurs began their comeback through a Harry Kane goal in the 40th minute, giving his team some hope heading into half-time.
After showing some character in the second half, Heung-Min Son made the scoreline 3-2 after beating Allisson in a one-on-one.
Then, it looked as if Tottenham had completed the comeback in the dying moments of the game, with ex-Everton attacker Richarlison heading home his first Premier League goal of the season in the 93rd minute.
However, the draw wasn’t to be for Mason’s Spurs, after Lucas Moura made a horrendous error and played the ball straight into Diogo Jota’s path. Jota made no mistake, and regained the lead for Liverpool.
In his post-match interview, Mason highlighted a horrendous challenge made by Jota on Oliver Skipp, which left the midfielder with a nasty cut.
The manager also praised his team’s response to going 3-0 down, but said the opening 20 minutes of the game were nowhere near good enough.
“Difficult to put into words, to give them three goals makes our task very difficult to win the game,” Mason said.
“We created the better chances and looked like scoring every time we had the ball.”
When pressed on why Tottenham started so poorly, Mason added: I don’t know at this time, If you’re not ready to start games with full intensity you’re going to concede goals and to be 3-0 down after that time is hard.
“The manner in which we concede the last goal makes it impossible to take. I need to speak to the players on that, we need to address it and do it quickly.
“We know were a team that can hurt opposition and score goals against anybody. But ultimately you don’t win games just with the ball, you can’t concede 4 goals as a team and take more pride in keeping clean sheets.
“We should’ve scored more but to concede a goal in the last minute to a player that shouldn’t have been on the pitch is hard to take.”
Then, Mason switched his attention to Jota’s challenge.
“I need an explanation,” he said.
“I want to know why the referee on the pitch didn’t see it, but also why an experienced one in the VAR room can’t. Its hard to justify how that isn’t a red card. It ticks all the boxes for dangerous play so it’s hard to understand why.
“There’s no positives right now because we’ve lost, there’s anger and disappointment.”
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